Author: Betsy

OOMK Zine

| Betsy

Sometimes I am lucky enough to be asked to do some wicked cool projects with some wicked cool people. Such is the case in being asked to participate in the first issue of OOMK zine. (In case you’re wondering, OOMK stands for One Of My Kind.) The issue below is about Fabric, and I was well chuffed to be asked to participate in such a lovely project.

Want more OOMK?

Go find them on Twitter at @oomkzine. Or go find them IRL at these stockists or buy this issue online here over at Magpile.

There’s also an excellent review (although you’ll see why I’m biased!) over on the New Statesman here.

P.S. Yes! We changed back to the old design! (Because it just makes me happy.)

Kaarina Kaikkonen’s Are We Still Afloat?

| Betsy

This is a video of the making of Kaarina Kaikkonen’s Are We Still Afloat? currently up for the Nordic Cool 2013 festival at the Kennedy Center.

The piece is two parts of a boat, with the center missing, creating a sort of liminal space for you to walk through… Are you in the boat? Is the boat still afloat?

I’m posting it here because it’s a reminder of how you don’t have to look far for your inspiration, as this was made from 1000 dress shirts collected from DC residents. The shirts we see on people dozens of times a day. And look how they are arranged and how magical they become.

Like stitches, many become one, the banal becomes exceptional, pieces are stronger by the addition of others. Simple in its idea, yet masterly crafted, this piece and Kaikkonen’s reason for making it, blend the personal and the everyday. All because a shirt covers the heart. Simple. Beautiful. Lovely.

Why Craft = Punk Rock (A Revisit from 2004)

| Betsy

This is repost from March 23, 2004. You can see the entirety of that post here. I still think that the “grandmother” issues is as important today as it was then. What do you think? Also, aren’t you glad I use “regular” punctuation now?

there is a press frenzy surrounding [knitting] and i’ve been dealing with people who are calling knitting a ‘trend,’ a ‘fad,’ a ‘craze’ and i can’t help but get a little but frustrated by it all yet continually finding it all naive. both my reaction to the press interest as well as their wanting to just find a creative angle to fit their byline.

i don’t do my various crafts because it’s ‘trendy,’ although i do sometimes have crafty dreams that include everyone turning off their televisions and making stuff, whether it’s knitting a sweater or making macaroni necklaces or screenprinting fliers for a local demo. anything as long as you are letting your passion be your guide rather than what’s seen a ‘popular for the moment.’

i’m fascinated by the emails i get from people in regards to their pure love of various crafts. some of them are confused about what i’m trying to do here with this blog or in various work i do. i want to be a resource for people that want to help other people with their various crafty endeavours. maybe i’m helping to fill that void, or maybe i’m just taking up more space on the interweb, i’m not sure most days.

no, everything i make doesn’t go to charity. but some of it does.

the other part of my crafty dream is that everyone becomes conscious of all of their actions.by asking things like: do i need this? do i want to support this company? how can i help? where does my passion lie?

it is all quite emo and i’m sure my parents would conclude that i’m now a hippie.

but it’s about more than that.

my background is firmly entrenched in punk rock. i was always cutting and pasting my own little zines (and then hiding them under my bed because i felt they were crap) or daydreaming about playing drums in the next bikini kill.

but i never felt like i was good enough at anything really to make my mark. it was only when i started learning to knit, crochet, embroider, screenprint, make books, felt, etc etc that i regained my own sense of self and that fire that punk rock put in my belly when i was 16.

craft to me is very punk rock and it’s hard to read article after article about how craft is just for ‘grannies.’ i love my grandmother who knits, she is kickass, but i’m also inspired daily by the way that punk rock influences my own brand of activism and craft. craftivism, if you will.

who knows, maybe you feel the same way, maybe not. but i can never ignore how punk rock shaped my crafting. i owe my creativity to it, and it’s so not just a trend. and some days i get homesick for people who understand that.

xo

Craftivism, Activism, and Love.

| Betsy

Every Sunday I look forward to getting the Brain Pickings’ newsletter delivered to my inbox. I feel like every week there is something that resonates deep within me, and says things in ways that I could never quite pinpoint or elucidate on. This week’s was no different.

One of the posts mentioned was called The Science of Love: How Positivity Resonance Shapes the Way We Connect. To learn more about “positivity resonance,” please go check out the full post .

Perhaps counterintuitively, love is far more ubiquitous than you ever thought possible for the simple fact that love is connection. It’s that poignant stretching of your heart that you feel when you gaze into a newborn’s eyes for the first time or share a farewell hug with a dear friend. It’s even the fondness and sense of shared purpose you might unexpectedly feel with a group of strangers who’ve come together to marvel at a hatching of sea turtles or cheer at a football game. The new take on love that I want to share with you is this: Love blossoms virtually anytime two or more people — even strangers — connect over a shared positive emotion, be it mild or strong.

…

At the level of positivity resonance, micro-moments of love are virtually identical regardless of whether they bloom between you and a stranger or you and a soul mate; between you and an infant or you and your lifelong best friend. The clearest difference between the love you feel with intimates and the love you feel with anyone with whom you share a connection is its sheer frequency. Spending more total moments together increases your chances to feast on micro-moments of positivity resonance. These micro-moments change you.

Don’t let the quotes I pulled from this post mislead you (entirely), as it definitely is a champion of “the necessary physicality of love.” And, I am, too. However, at the end of the day, I like to think of craftivism as part and parcel love letter to the world, as sometimes in your love letters you express anger or regret or shame or any number of negative emotions before you begin to roll over on your back and expose your soft belly underside, the squooshy, mooshy, lovey dovey parts that mend all things back together and show that, no matter what your discontent, love still remains above all.

Whether you’re making quilt squares to donate to charity or creating protest banners and leaving them in public places or making xstitch pieces to voice your anger or knitting mittens for the homeless in your spare time or realizing that crochet is saving your life… it’s all a love letter to craft, activism, and craftivism.

And, in that, there is infinite beauty and depth and heart and soul and love.

When I started all of this I did so as a reaction to the negative connotations of the word “activism.” I never knew that I was really wanting to connect “love” to activism more so than craft! Because each time we do something that helps others with our craft we are creating our own “micro-moments” of love in our own hearts that maybe we’ll either give to ourselves if we need it or to others. We’re cultivating and harnessing love and care as we open dialogues and our own hearts with what we make with our hands.

As craftivists we are lucky enough to have a process in which to heal us, and a product with which to help others. We are lucky to have the time to let what we’re making sink in and resonate deep within us as we make it, and then lucky enough to have the chance and the freedom with which to share it. The process warms our own hearts as much as the products warm the hearts (and bodies and souls) of others. And, in that, I find infinite love and am happy that there are others that feel the same way.

Thank you, in helping to send your love letters out into the world in whichever way you see best. Thank you for creating more “micro-moments” from which to draw love, feel love, and be love. By willing to express your inner thoughts and then share them with the world through craft, you are creating the conditions of love and acting as a reminder that activism can be a 4-letter word, just one filled with joy instead of hate.

Helsinki Cathedral Steps Covered In Quilts!

| Betsy

I love how the “world wide web” is indeed a web of fantastic discovery!

Via Pinterest, I discovered this photo below. Which led me to Googling, which led me to the immediate text following it by Toni Rexroat of Crochet Me, which led me to a article in Finnish about the project itself.

quiltsfinland

Afghans, as far as the eye can see, blanketed the concrete steps of a beautiful white church. I was intrigued and amazed by this photo when I saw it on Pinterest. Following the link brought me to a newspaper article with several more amazing pictures and a short story in Finnsih. I, unfortunately, can’t read Finnish. If you can, definitely check out the full article.

But I have never seen that many granny squares in one place! I had to know the story. The online translation software struggled with some of the words in the article, but I think I got the basic story.

The photographs were taken October 1, 2011 on the steps of the Helsinki Cathedral in the center of Helsinki Finland. It seems that the Martha Association and the Textile Teachers Association attempted to set a record and gather one thousand blankets which would be donated to the Federation of Mother and Child Homes and Shelters.

They met their goal and then immediately surpassed it by gathering 7,800 blankets. Three thousand eight hundred of these afghans were then spread across the steps of the Helsinki Cathedral and photographed.

Phew!

Even if you don’t read Finnish, it’s well worth a click over to the original article to see more photos!

Wanna see some more craftivism over at Pinterest? Go check out my craftivism board and the craftivism boards of others!